There was a man picketing President Obama as he made his speech in Kansas City this morning. He accused the President of being single-handedly responsible for him not being able to find a job. He says Obama should try to build a relationship with Congress so they could solve problems together. He doesn't think the President should use Executive Order to work around Congressional obstructionist behaviors, no matter that presidents beginning with George Washington have used it. Needless to say, the man is a Republican. If he were a Democrat, he would be saying the Congress is do nothing and causing the whole problem. He can see only the view of the President that is presented by Republicans who are trying to take back the Oval Office.
At the same time the President was inside the Uptown Theater talking about the four per cent second quarter growth in the economy and the low unemployment rate, this man was outside saying that nothing had been done about employment for people fifty and over.
God help you, sir, and anybody else who is fifty and looking for work. But that's not the President's fault. That is the fault of chronological age.
I know about being over fifty and job hunting. I may be the resident expert on the topic. It's not a pretty situation. Employers want to hire the youngsters. Why? They are recently trained and up to date. They will work more cheaply. The supervisors don't want to hire people with more experience than they have. They might actually know more at fifty.
Generally, "50 Somethings" have to take a significant cut in pay to find a job. Eventually, even minimum wage jobs will look good as a path out of desperation. So, cut to the chase and take the first one you can abide of the ones you are offered. Employers look more kindly on someone who is employed, even at the lower end.
You will also need to quit dwelling on Obama, the economy, how unfair life is and that everything would be better if Republicans ran the world. In the first place, if Republicans always ran the world you would be taxed, while the rich would get off scot-free and all the jobs would be outsourced to China so the rich could get even richer.
This aside, focusing on the downside all the time shows in your face and your body language. Being unsure of yourself shows the world you have poor self confidence. Even if you get a job during this time of hesitation, you make an easy target for kick-me experts.
Every morning look yourself in the eye -- in the mirror -- and tell yourself you are a creation of Almighty God. God didn't make any losers, so you must be one of the Eagles. And believe it. Look for work using skills at which you have succeeded before, and accent the successes in the way you present yourself. Don't oversell yourself, as, if hired, you will have to prove you can do what you say. Just tell the truth in the most positive manner possible.
Be realistic about the kind of things you know. If you fetched supplies for a roofer, a roofer you are not. Become a gopher again so you can use your experience at the same time you learn new things.
On your resumes, don't lead with your age. It will show up on transcripts and work history anyway, so don't make it a focus.
Try to dress younger -- not like a teenager -- just young ideas. If you are gray, consider a partial dye job. And don't do comb-overs or wear hairpieces. Unless they are done professionally, they look
ridiculous.
Make your resumes creative and informative. Some Personnel Directors like to see people lead with experience that makes the candidate seem experienced for their job. And don't let your spirits get down and out.
Selling your resume is the same as selling a product. The more times you try, the better your odds of success. For instance, in book sales, I heard that a good expectation is that one will sell books to three per cent of the people they contact. So for every one hundred applications you file, you stand a chance at three job offers.
Volunteer at places where you can show your skills. Sometimes a good volunteer is the first choice at a paying job.
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Monday, July 21, 2014
Our Changing Complexion
On this evening's CBS news program, an Hispanic man who lives on the Texas border was showing how multiple groups of illegal aliens cross his property to enter the U. S. The bottom line of the segment was that we are being invaded and the border needs to be secured. Governor Rick Perry of Texas called out 1000 National Guard Troops today to help with the crisis.
There have been predictions for many years that by 2025 or at least 2050, there will be no more majority in this country. A lot of people in their high rise apartments in New York and Washington, D. C., and their weekend homes in the Hamptons, don't seem all that concerned about this. They are still believing we should be admitting all those little children who appear at our doors. Since it is unlikely very many of them will be arriving in their digs, why should they be stressed?
I cannot imagine what it is like to live in Texas, Southern California, Arizona, etc., where there is a never ending stream of illegal aliens. I can simply give you an example of what it is like to live in lower middle class apartments in middle America. In order to live here, one must be able to buy a share in a coop and pay a monthly maintenance fee ($220 monthly at this time). It is worse in rental complexes.
We have been proud of our diversity in the past. We've had white, African American, Hispanic, Middle Eastern and Asian Americans since before I moved here in 1996.
To understand the following information, please use this key.
DK, don't know. NA, Native American. C, Caucasian. H, Hispanic
Building 1, six apartments
1996 C / C / C / C / NA / C
Now C / C / H / H / H / H
Building 2, four apartments
1996 C / C / C / C
Now H / C / C / C
Building 3, four apartments
1996 C / C / C / C
Now C / C / C / H
Building 4, four apartments
1996 C / C / H&C / C
Now C / H /H / DK
In eighteen years, we have gone from one Hispanic individual in my immediate surroundings to eight Hispanic families. That Americans born here, aside from Hispanics, will no longer be a majority here by mid century, seems an understatement if this is a true representation of what is happening everywhere. It looks to me like another two years and we'll have a new Hispanic majority. Is that okay with you in the High Rises? Well, it's not okay with Texans, Californians, and the people of Arizona where it is worse than middle America.
I've told you before that some of these Hispanics are better neighbors than some of the Caucasians in these buildings. Yet, even with that in their favor, there are a few chuckles to living with it. Virtually every Hispanic family I know buys a car for every family member of driving age. When the car dies, it is frequently left parked where it died. The owners faithfully renew the license plates even though they can't use the cars. As long as the tags are up to date, nothing can be done. So, we have to keep creating more and more parking areas -- and we are running out of ground. Two men who own dead cars don't even live here anymore. One does come and check on his family's two apartments and the people living in them, but one has not been seen for years.
But enough with the details! Becoming a minority takes a lot of adjustment for many of us. It was especially true in the workplace where supervisors, people of other races or cultures, paid us back for what other Caucasians had been accused of doing to members of their race. It is but somewhat better in our communities.
I hear that the illegals are a great expense to us. Certainly those who don't pay taxes are not helping to carry the load. But then, I've no expertise in determining just how great either of these costs are to our communities.
I'm simply pointing out that our complexion is changing at a very rapid rate, and we need to slow it down ASAP. We need some time to adjust and reorganize before the mid-century is here.
There have been predictions for many years that by 2025 or at least 2050, there will be no more majority in this country. A lot of people in their high rise apartments in New York and Washington, D. C., and their weekend homes in the Hamptons, don't seem all that concerned about this. They are still believing we should be admitting all those little children who appear at our doors. Since it is unlikely very many of them will be arriving in their digs, why should they be stressed?
I cannot imagine what it is like to live in Texas, Southern California, Arizona, etc., where there is a never ending stream of illegal aliens. I can simply give you an example of what it is like to live in lower middle class apartments in middle America. In order to live here, one must be able to buy a share in a coop and pay a monthly maintenance fee ($220 monthly at this time). It is worse in rental complexes.
We have been proud of our diversity in the past. We've had white, African American, Hispanic, Middle Eastern and Asian Americans since before I moved here in 1996.
To understand the following information, please use this key.
DK, don't know. NA, Native American. C, Caucasian. H, Hispanic
Building 1, six apartments
1996 C / C / C / C / NA / C
Now C / C / H / H / H / H
Building 2, four apartments
1996 C / C / C / C
Now H / C / C / C
Building 3, four apartments
1996 C / C / C / C
Now C / C / C / H
Building 4, four apartments
1996 C / C / H&C / C
Now C / H /H / DK
In eighteen years, we have gone from one Hispanic individual in my immediate surroundings to eight Hispanic families. That Americans born here, aside from Hispanics, will no longer be a majority here by mid century, seems an understatement if this is a true representation of what is happening everywhere. It looks to me like another two years and we'll have a new Hispanic majority. Is that okay with you in the High Rises? Well, it's not okay with Texans, Californians, and the people of Arizona where it is worse than middle America.
I've told you before that some of these Hispanics are better neighbors than some of the Caucasians in these buildings. Yet, even with that in their favor, there are a few chuckles to living with it. Virtually every Hispanic family I know buys a car for every family member of driving age. When the car dies, it is frequently left parked where it died. The owners faithfully renew the license plates even though they can't use the cars. As long as the tags are up to date, nothing can be done. So, we have to keep creating more and more parking areas -- and we are running out of ground. Two men who own dead cars don't even live here anymore. One does come and check on his family's two apartments and the people living in them, but one has not been seen for years.
But enough with the details! Becoming a minority takes a lot of adjustment for many of us. It was especially true in the workplace where supervisors, people of other races or cultures, paid us back for what other Caucasians had been accused of doing to members of their race. It is but somewhat better in our communities.
I hear that the illegals are a great expense to us. Certainly those who don't pay taxes are not helping to carry the load. But then, I've no expertise in determining just how great either of these costs are to our communities.
I'm simply pointing out that our complexion is changing at a very rapid rate, and we need to slow it down ASAP. We need some time to adjust and reorganize before the mid-century is here.
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Why Not Steal From One Who Has Something?
I keep getting miffed about the number of people who try to make a run on my money. Among the frequent attempts are the low-lives who offer riches if I will pay them, or, better still, give them my bank account number. Others stand where they hope they can see my pen numbers. Another told me recently that he/she needed my computer password. I cannot describe for you the bitter disappointment on his/her face a few weeks later when I said I don't bank on line. (And, no, I don't give out my computer password to strangers or friends). I can't usually remember it anyway.
Perhaps I'm one of those people who attracts snake-in-the-grass individuals, but I'm not quite senile yet. I've had some senior moments and, on any given day, I might forget your name. However, I still have enough wits about me to be suitably paranoid about my stuff. Paranoia, by the way, is now seen as being aware of your surroundings rather than as a neurosis or mental health issue. It was left in the most recent DSM to facilitate doctors trying to bill insurance companies for patient treatment.
Recently, someone climbed on the neighbor's roof and unlocked and opened a bedroom window. When I got a phone call at 12:28 a.m., I heard a gasp that sounded like it was in the hall outside my bedroom. I'd been reading all evening and no television noise had notified anyone that I was around. When I went to bed, it was evident that neighbors on both sides were home. It tests reason that it is possible for B & E experts to stomp all over a neighbor's roof and the neighbors not hear it, don't you think? Anyway, I had heard them earlier sorting through some pipes and an outdoor umbrella in front of my house and I even heard the stomping. Due to my fans being on high, I could not tell that they were coming through the window.
So, let me be abundantly clear! I have $25.51 in savings -- for a long time now. My income is $823 per month. That is not enough to even rent an apartment in my country plus pay for utilities and buy food. If I did not own the paper on one of the country's smallest townhouses, I would have to be living on the largesse of relatives -- or on the street.
Although my 1998 auto -- a gift from my daughter and son-in-law -- is significantly better than my previous car, a 1997 two seat minivan, it is not anywhere near a Lamborghini. So why do people feel obligated to punch it, scratch it and try to break and enter it? I just don't get the fascination with me and my stuff. I'm not rich, or famous, or even beautiful. At 76, I'm barely tolerable. And I know practically nobody but family, so my lovely personality could not have ticked them off. Oh yes, there are not enough United States readers of this blog to have elicited this hate, either.
I hardly ever have any cash, so forget finding the mother lode inside my apartment. On the rare occasion I check out $30, I spend $10.00 for gas on the way home and pay the other $20.00 to the man who pulls weeds in my yard. That's it folks! The bare, ugly truth!
So, whoever you are out there, find another victim. If you took everything I had it wouldn't make you secure, much less rich. It would be just about enough to get you a felony conviction and a stint in prison.
I'd suggest you find a rich person to stalk, but I'm one of those perennial optimists who believe God will eventually make it up to me for all this poverty. And then you and I would be back to square one and I would have more than my life to lose. But, I would be able to afford that licensed gun I need for protection. And then you would be risking your life, too!
Perhaps I'm one of those people who attracts snake-in-the-grass individuals, but I'm not quite senile yet. I've had some senior moments and, on any given day, I might forget your name. However, I still have enough wits about me to be suitably paranoid about my stuff. Paranoia, by the way, is now seen as being aware of your surroundings rather than as a neurosis or mental health issue. It was left in the most recent DSM to facilitate doctors trying to bill insurance companies for patient treatment.
Recently, someone climbed on the neighbor's roof and unlocked and opened a bedroom window. When I got a phone call at 12:28 a.m., I heard a gasp that sounded like it was in the hall outside my bedroom. I'd been reading all evening and no television noise had notified anyone that I was around. When I went to bed, it was evident that neighbors on both sides were home. It tests reason that it is possible for B & E experts to stomp all over a neighbor's roof and the neighbors not hear it, don't you think? Anyway, I had heard them earlier sorting through some pipes and an outdoor umbrella in front of my house and I even heard the stomping. Due to my fans being on high, I could not tell that they were coming through the window.
So, let me be abundantly clear! I have $25.51 in savings -- for a long time now. My income is $823 per month. That is not enough to even rent an apartment in my country plus pay for utilities and buy food. If I did not own the paper on one of the country's smallest townhouses, I would have to be living on the largesse of relatives -- or on the street.
Although my 1998 auto -- a gift from my daughter and son-in-law -- is significantly better than my previous car, a 1997 two seat minivan, it is not anywhere near a Lamborghini. So why do people feel obligated to punch it, scratch it and try to break and enter it? I just don't get the fascination with me and my stuff. I'm not rich, or famous, or even beautiful. At 76, I'm barely tolerable. And I know practically nobody but family, so my lovely personality could not have ticked them off. Oh yes, there are not enough United States readers of this blog to have elicited this hate, either.
I hardly ever have any cash, so forget finding the mother lode inside my apartment. On the rare occasion I check out $30, I spend $10.00 for gas on the way home and pay the other $20.00 to the man who pulls weeds in my yard. That's it folks! The bare, ugly truth!
So, whoever you are out there, find another victim. If you took everything I had it wouldn't make you secure, much less rich. It would be just about enough to get you a felony conviction and a stint in prison.
I'd suggest you find a rich person to stalk, but I'm one of those perennial optimists who believe God will eventually make it up to me for all this poverty. And then you and I would be back to square one and I would have more than my life to lose. But, I would be able to afford that licensed gun I need for protection. And then you would be risking your life, too!
Thursday, July 10, 2014
Crime And It's Punishment
". . . It's easy enough to understand. Some bastard steals the public's money. The public has a right to know about it." John Cotton, reporter and character in The Fly On The Wall. Author, Tony Hillerman. Harper Fiction, 1971.
I'd just finished reading this book and using another quote in my political blog -- at louhough.BlogSpot.com. Then, on television news last night we witnessed a former mayor of New Orleans being escorted from court after sentencing for taking bribes in office. He claims to be innocent. That may be true, but there must have been some overwhelming circumstances to make him suspect.
The issue in the above-mentioned book was what exactly are the responsibilities and moral requirements of a reporter who stumbles on any kind of fraud or graft when doing his work? Does he consider the families and the individuals involved in the crime? Or, in the case of a public servant wasting tax payer money, does he report the crime for the taxpayer? This rather simplistic analysis of the theme of the book makes it a "no brainer".
The reporter's duty is to report the crime and protect the public -- not to protect the criminal. But does that duty change if unrelated innocent people may be caught in the crossfire? What if a whole country can be hurt? Where does the duty belong then? More difficult, isn't it?
For the criminal to ask for mercy for his family after the fact is not reasonable. They were his responsibility and his duty to protect. He should have thought of them before the crime. And God help them after the fact. He, himself, deserves no consideration. Most would contend that if he did the crime, he deserves the time.
Innocent victims who are caught in the crossfire because they were associated with the criminal, though they had no knowledge of the crime, are a harder problem. Some politician's job or future or reputation should suffer because he held an office several levels higher than the criminal? I don't think that should happen, do you? It is the responsibility of the criminal's immediate supervisors to pay attention to his department and detect and report the crime.
But the greatest problem of all is, as in the case of politics, when a whole country loses a good leader just through guilt by association. That makes a whole country that gets cheated twice -- once by the criminal committing the crime and again because an innocent bystander loses his political career for nothing.
John Cotton was right when he said the public has a right to know when a bastard steals it's money. But he also was right to question if facts and truth are the only issues involved.
Certainly, crime and it's punishment need a lot of thoughtful reflection. And keep in mind, the criminal needs to pay for it some way. But the criminals are not the only people hurt by crime. And we need to give special consideration to individuals caught in the criminal's path to self destruction. How would we want to be treated ourselves if we were victims of circumstance? Think about it!
I'd just finished reading this book and using another quote in my political blog -- at louhough.BlogSpot.com. Then, on television news last night we witnessed a former mayor of New Orleans being escorted from court after sentencing for taking bribes in office. He claims to be innocent. That may be true, but there must have been some overwhelming circumstances to make him suspect.
The issue in the above-mentioned book was what exactly are the responsibilities and moral requirements of a reporter who stumbles on any kind of fraud or graft when doing his work? Does he consider the families and the individuals involved in the crime? Or, in the case of a public servant wasting tax payer money, does he report the crime for the taxpayer? This rather simplistic analysis of the theme of the book makes it a "no brainer".
The reporter's duty is to report the crime and protect the public -- not to protect the criminal. But does that duty change if unrelated innocent people may be caught in the crossfire? What if a whole country can be hurt? Where does the duty belong then? More difficult, isn't it?
For the criminal to ask for mercy for his family after the fact is not reasonable. They were his responsibility and his duty to protect. He should have thought of them before the crime. And God help them after the fact. He, himself, deserves no consideration. Most would contend that if he did the crime, he deserves the time.
Innocent victims who are caught in the crossfire because they were associated with the criminal, though they had no knowledge of the crime, are a harder problem. Some politician's job or future or reputation should suffer because he held an office several levels higher than the criminal? I don't think that should happen, do you? It is the responsibility of the criminal's immediate supervisors to pay attention to his department and detect and report the crime.
But the greatest problem of all is, as in the case of politics, when a whole country loses a good leader just through guilt by association. That makes a whole country that gets cheated twice -- once by the criminal committing the crime and again because an innocent bystander loses his political career for nothing.
John Cotton was right when he said the public has a right to know when a bastard steals it's money. But he also was right to question if facts and truth are the only issues involved.
Certainly, crime and it's punishment need a lot of thoughtful reflection. And keep in mind, the criminal needs to pay for it some way. But the criminals are not the only people hurt by crime. And we need to give special consideration to individuals caught in the criminal's path to self destruction. How would we want to be treated ourselves if we were victims of circumstance? Think about it!
Thursday, July 3, 2014
Keying
I was having a laugh with the Almighty this morning. Well, I laughed anyway. I can't speak for God. I sensed He told me one of my articles was ready to put into the computer. He seemed hesitant over the word keying.
So, I explained to God that typing had always been a service position. It was something that mostly women were expected to do for men. It was one of the ways we facilitated the work of our "betters".
But there was a problem when it came to computers. Men used them at least as much as women. They couldn't let themselves be viewed as doing women's work, now could they?
So, we don't type anymore on computers! We key in our manuscripts, our messages. Well, at least they let we women "key" instead of "type" also.
All is well with the world after all.
So, I explained to God that typing had always been a service position. It was something that mostly women were expected to do for men. It was one of the ways we facilitated the work of our "betters".
But there was a problem when it came to computers. Men used them at least as much as women. They couldn't let themselves be viewed as doing women's work, now could they?
So, we don't type anymore on computers! We key in our manuscripts, our messages. Well, at least they let we women "key" instead of "type" also.
All is well with the world after all.
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